The 50s, in verse
October 23rd, 2007, 3:03 pm · 4 Comments · posted by Timothy Mangan, classical music critic
In his recently published book “The Rest is Noise,” Alex Ross is giving us all a new understanding of classical music in the wild 1950s. The following is humbly dedicated to him.
Boulez once said
That Schoenberg was dead,
And totaled his serial-ism.Cage took to chance,
His music to enhance,
And thereby caused the schism.Xenakis then found,
A brand new ground –
Buildings by atonal means.Shostakovich, meanwhiles,
Put music in piles,
And filed away all his dreams.Copland spoke to
The McCarthy zoo,
And never quite came back.Stravinsky withstood
As well as he could,
By dint of 12-tonal tack.Ligeti split
His music a bit,
Micro-polyphonic in style.Stockhausen unwound
An interplanet’ry sound,
His hand on electronic dial.The listener said wha?
The listener said huh?
I think that there’s something I’m missin’.Babbitt said no,
It’s all in the row,
And who gives a crap if you listen?
October 24th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Well done! This is brilliant.
October 24th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Hahaha, excellent. If I could actually write music, I’d set it as an oratorio, with each section being roughly in the style of the composer mentioned. I’d love the Cage > Xenakis transition!
Ah, so that’s what you look like. I thought you had a beard or is that only on your jazz gigs?
October 24th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
The photo was taken 40 years ago.
October 28th, 2007 at 5:36 am
A 20th-century-music textbook in 10 stanzas. Oh the many levels of irony.